During the Office Hours on Wednesday, 22.06.2022 at 1 pm PDT, Emily will be talking to Career Specialist Sami Gardner about how you can leverage your background experience during the UX job search. Specifically, portfolios and how you can present yourself and your work, and finally how to use the job search process for better self-discovery!

Sami G from The Career Kickstart and Emily (me)

EMILY: Hi everyone, thank you for having me here! I am a CareerFoundry alumni. I was a student in 2020. So during the pandemic, I decided to have an existential life reflection moment and really found that I wasn’t happy in my role and that UX design would be a good fit for me.

SAMI: So my first question is ESRI..is that…my mind is thinking of ArcGIS. Yes, am I right? Okay. Yes. I worked at an archaeological museum. So I remember the archaeologists throwing that word around.

EMILY: It’s a data visualization tool to plot your data — but in a geographical sense so you can see all your data on a map. If you’ve seen the COVID John’s Hopkins map, that is actually using ArcGIS.

SAMI: Tell us a little bit more about your career journey. How’d you get here?

EMILY: So I started out in marketing. I’ve had a similar background to you where I wanted to do museum work. I majored in art history in college, but it’s very difficult to get that career going in the arts as everyone knows, but I decided to just take a leap and do a marketing internship.

From there, I just jumped around a few roles from content creation and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I went through some agency experiences, working with a range of clients. During that time, I realized that I really missed working with people in comparison to working with numbers, data on a spreadsheet and reporting revenue growth. It just got really dry for me really fast.

I felt like UX was a perfect balance of the two: people and logic, and then creating something beautiful and functional at the same time felt more rewarding. So that’s when I researched more on CareerFoundry and then did my bootcamp.

I know it’s hard. You have to work at the same time in a lot of cases.

Just keeping that momentum up, I totally empathize with a lot of students in that respect. I started my job search and coincidentally, I got really lucky. The UX Lead at Esri was looking for designers who had marketing experience and to be clear, I’m not a designer within the ArcGIS software itself, but on the marketing side.

So any experience that you’re seeing on esri.com, that’s kind of where my work is and helping audiences understand what GIS is. So, they were really looking for someone who had SEO experience, which is what my past role was. So I think there’s a lot of value in not downplaying or muting your past.

Like don’t think of it as starting over. You’re not really starting over. You’re just pivoting and just changing direction. So, that’s something that I really try to remind current students as well.

SAMI: Okay. With your work you were able to use, well, the training at CareerFoundry, but also your previous experience as a marketer now for students who sometimes don’t always realize that there’s different types of UX designers with different specialties.

Could you give us a little explanation of how you’re combining UX and marketing and like what does that entail? Who are you working with? What are your user groups?

EMILY: A lot of my day to day work looks like defining audience groups. It’s really interesting because like you said, you were familiar with ArcGIS already. And so there’s those types of users who we might call super users. Like they know the software, they are getting in there looking at the data.

And then there’s people who are business executives who don’t even know the value of GIS or what GIS stands for. GIS stands for geographic information systems. Defining those audiences and making sure that I’m mapping out experiences appropriate for those audiences.

That’s where marketing comes in handy. You’re studying the people, you’re studying the behavior and you’re also measuring the success of your designs. And so sometimes I think design and research can be siloed. And really one of our goals just as an organization, and in the industry as well is to really make research integrated into the UX design process. So we can measure if traffic has changed, just actively integrating that marketing knowledge that I already know. It’s not really distinguished in my actual work in say like user flows and things like that, but it’s the knowledge, the knowledge is there and it’s really valuable.

SAMI: So, would you say that you’re using, cause it sounds like you might also be using some of the similar tools that you use before, like heat maps, doing surveys. Trying to like, just work with cross functionally with different departments and stakeholders.

I know with CareerFoundry’s marketing department, that they reach out to career services to make sure that they’re like explaining things right. And like, you know, that they actually know what we do. So would you say that you’re able to utilize, I guess you probably couldn’t do like a percentage maybe, but what do you think the ratio is between your marketing knowledge and your UX knowledge that you’re using?

EMILY: That’s a question I haven’t thought about yet. I think that’s really interesting. I would say 50/50, even just my hunch because in marketing, or at least, in my design role right now, we really need to understand who’s landing onto the site. And so really understanding like what audience, like who is coming to our pages.

And if I need answers to those questions that I have, I can go into our analytics and see like actual pathways, like who jumped onto this page, who’s leaving this page. Um, so it’s really about the who and then I would say the how, which is the other 50%, is the UX part. So, how are we going to create an ideal pathway for these people to help them understand what it is we do?

So, really defining your audience is a huge part of my role.

SAMI: So would you call this a ‘bridge’ role, a role which kind of spans both your previous and your current career?

EMILY: Yeah, I definitely would say that, another aspect that was attractive as a candidate for myself was that I had SEO experience.

SEO is search engine optimization. That’s helping your page get architecturally designed so that Google can see it on the search engine results page. We are designing pages with SEO in mind. So they placed me for those pages that needed high SEO awareness.

SAMI: You can be more competitive than other people, potentially designers with more experience because you have this specialized knowledge.

So Emily, you finished CareerFoundry, you survived the gauntlet. That is a boot camp. How did you start? Did you decide initially to be like, yeah, I’m gonna do a bridge role?

I’m gonna maximize and leverage my background or was that, uh, a later realization?

EMILY: Yeah. Um, interestingly enough, I mean, I, it was the typical hero’s journey story arc where you’re really struggling. You’re literally at rock bottom. Like you do not know what to do. Like you’ve applied to all these places. Maybe more than a few hundred- it’s hard to keep count.

Some companies don’t even get back to you. You don’t know what to work on if you don’t have that concrete feedback. So I can totally understand for those of you who are in the job search phase, I’ve been there like rock bottom. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

So I didn’t know at first, I think this role just found me. And I think that’s part of the process that everyone has to go through. I’ve heard several CareerFoundry alumni members that the role found them and they were extremely lucky. I do have some resources that can help you all out. I’m not sure if you wanna talk about that now, Sami…

SAMI: Let’s dig into the meat of it. Let’s dig into it. We started late. They’ve been waiting for the knowledge. Perfect.

EMILY: Okay. So, when I was going through this rock bottom phase… I’m not getting any feedback. I’m not getting any interviews. I do not know what I’m doing wrong. /my resume’s good. My portfolio, I thought, was good.

But I revisited my portfolio and there’s, it’s like, a two step thing here. The first step was the portfolio. I looked at it and I was like, you know, I am shaping this to look like everyone else on the market, just so I can fit in when I realized, okay, that’s not the right approach.

Like you really need to curate this to brand who you are. So that’s kind of how I rebranded my whole portfolio. I’ve written several medium articles about that, which kind of go into the nuts and bolts about it, but I can share that link later. But I rebranded the portfolio. I highlighted core skills from marketing that would cater to specific roles and skillsets.

And so once I rebranded that, I don’t know if that’s the core cause of how the recruiter or manager found me, but it was after the fact that I rebranded the portfolio. I talked about my marketing experience, content experience, SEO experience, and kind of just branded the ideal image of how I wanted to present myself as a professional.

I think this is a really good opportunity to start with a blank slate. So, how would you want someone to approach you? Like what do they want your core key skillsets to be? And then the second part of this exercise- this is not solely related to design, but this book really helped me out.

It’s called The Motivation Code by Todd Henry. This book talks about certain exercises you can do for self-reflection and discovering what kind of areas you excel in and what kind of areas you do not enjoy or excel in. By doing that, I was able to, pinpoint, oh, okay…‘I like working on futuristic things where innovation is involved.’

I don’t like process stuff, so I would hate to be a design system focused designer. So being aware of these types of things kind of eliminate what you would not be a good fit for you. Like you go through all this effort. What if you go into a job, you hate it. Right. Then it’s like another round of all this trouble and exhaustion. So you’re just really getting to know yourself and what you’re good at and what you want to excel at.

I really recommend that book just for like self discovery awareness, which is really crucial for me.

SAMI: Now among the resources, cause you talk about doing a rebrand mm-hmm . Now could you talk a little bit about conceiving your rebrand. Did you make a mood board? Did you consult a mentor?

Cause we hear that word and I say it a lot. Like we’re like rebrand, rebrand, and we both have weirdly enough both museum and marketing experience. Odd combination. So I’ll say that and I know exactly what I mean. And then students are like, uh, pardon? Uh, a brand. Okay. What’s that. So tell me a little bit about yours. Cause it sounds like you had that to use a phrase from the hero’s journey. You had the dark night of the soul and you had to really go into it. So tell us a little bit about the nitty gritty of that rebrand.

EMILY: Yeah. I think a lot of it was like the look and feel of it. I don’t have my old version up now, but I was doing headlines that were super similar to other designers.

Like those buzzwords, right? Like empathy, pixel-perfect like all those type of words, everyone was using it. So I just wanted to do something that really extracted my unique experiences. So I talked about things like I’ve never worked in America, my career started in Japan. So really highlighting international experience at a wide range, like telling your own story in a UX kind of way.

I just kind changed the visual look of it because it didn’t seem like it fit the brand that I wanted. And I wanted to go for like a modern, friendly, approachable look. So whatever visual or content that matched that, I kind of redid it. I did my first portfolio in Wix but it was hard to customize and took a lot of time to organize the content.

So I switched over to Squarespace. But I might even do a rebrand again. Just because of the new experience that I’ve gotten from Esri and I might be switching over to Webflow just to like customize it more with animation.

I’ve done mood board inspirations. Those are super helpful because you’re really getting tactical with like what you want the look and the feel to be like. So I would try to get that down. And then this also goes for the content too. What are you only an expert at? Like any other designer probably doesn’t have experience in, like, I just met someone who was a paralegal before, I doubt there’s gonna be a lot of paralegals turned UX designers.

So they have a really special background as well. I have another medium article that talks about the rebrand. So I’ll probably put that link in the chat as well.

SAMI: Oh my gosh. Please do. Because I feel like with a lot of students, they get kind of lost in the weeds. I actually put a note of the different web hosts.

And for those of you guys who are here a lot, like Jay and Dahlia, you’ve probably heard me say never put pixel perfect design or anything like that. Cause everybody says those words literally. Everybody says that. So thank you, Emily, for, and I didn’t pay her to say that I did not pay her to validate my advice.

So I put the names of the web host in the web chat. You guys can actually see the articles from Emily and everything like that. So this is some really good stuff. So when you were thinking about if we’re thinking about the design process, as you were working on this portfolio, tell me a little bit of when you were sending it out, like to recruiters or to mentors, like, how were you soliciting feedback on it?

I guess we can call this the testing, the iteration phase of this.

EMILY: Yeah. I definitely shared the link around with friends, former mentors and the feedback was pretty positive. I think it’s really just a matter of being careful with your words. Do not say that you’re a fresh designer because that automatically turns recruiters off. And I actually, am guilty. I made that mistake when I was first job searching. I said, I’m a fresh designer from a bootcamp.

Those are the words you shouldn’t say, just because that puts you in a fresh category. I would always use words like pivot, you know, trying to take key words that are still aligned with UX, like research or communication.

“Especially with UX design, communication and facilitation with stakeholders is like, 80% of my work life.”

I would put your link, you know, with the communities that you’re already a part of. There’s so many UX communities that I’m a part of, Friends of Figma. They just moved to Discord, which is terrible UX and UI, but the people are still there.

Hexagon UX is a great one too. Try to be really active with your communities. A lot of people are really nice and helpful with some feedback.

SAMI: Besides CareerFoundry students, all my private clients are mid-level and senior designers who just, for one reason or another out on the market. And after 5 or 10 years, the same job, they just let their portfolio lapse. They don’t update it. And it means that they hire someone like me and I have to pretty much kick their butt back into shape, but an easier way of doing that is just like, keep your butt in shape the whole time, or at least just keep adding things.

In tech, the average tenure in a job is actually two to three years. Right. So you might actually move jobs quicker than in your previous career. So just a little bit of an aside. Now Emily, when we actually spoke in April and it was a lovely chat.

And one of the things that I thought was really interesting about our chat, Emily was you were talking about how to figure out what skills you want to do. And you mentioned the motivation code as a book rec. Are there any skills that you see as a designer working in the field that is transferable, but students or junior designers, aren’t really talking about it, whether that is presenting or management, like what do you see as a transferable skill that people aren’t really, taking advantage of or speaking about enough?

EMILY: Yeah, I think that will look different for everyone. It really depends on what your background is, but I think that the approach that you can take is standard across wherever you come from.

And so that standard could look like, okay, what was the high level skill? Like if I was a paralegal. You need to be detail oriented. If you miss something, you’re probably gonna lose the case. So detail orientation? I would say communication is a big one. You need to be a really good communicator because you’re communicating constantly with multiple different types of stakeholders.

So for example, my day to day looks like talking to the head of digital experience, the content strategist, the writer team. We have a dedicated team of UI designers. And then we also have key stakeholders who are on the ground working with our users, which are utilities people, conservation people or government people.

So all these different voices that you need to hear and you need to be able to communicate really well to all these voices. So just the basic of communication skills. Also I think for UX designers, it’s actually really common to naturally grow strong leadership skills because sometimes there’s a halt in a meeting where no one wants to make a decision or talk.

And so you need to be the person to facilitate the conversation, to help make crucial decisions that everyone can agree with. That’s something I’m even learning right now in my role, like, okay, ‘I should have worn a little bit more of a leadership hat in that workshop. I need to work on that.’

So yeah, just extracting at the highest level -what skills you lived out day to day. And I feel like writing it down is really helpful because it, it really absorbs like, clear and intentional thought rather than a stream of fuzziness in your brain. And then making it ‘real’ in writing, really helps me. So I would recommend writing it all out and then kind of just mapping it out.

Let’s pick five key skills from this little exercise. Pick a really successful moment. Doesn’t matter if it’s personal or professional, something you were really happy about achieving. You do that five times and then you read over them and say, oh my gosh, this pattern constantly shows up in each of those.

So, that’s something I care about. That way you’re able to really tailor your job description, to match what you wanna do. So that was kind of my approach, but I’m sure everyone can have their own plug and play approaches to this, but that’s something that worked out well for me

SAMI: I really like that you’re suggesting exercises. So thank you. Having that ability to brainstorm and do your own little audit on yourself is really key. Now in our previous conversation in April. You mentioned, one of the things that you’re interested in talking about is about figuring out your niche. Now we’ve talked about branding, so everybody here should have a good grounding in branding and how to find a brand.

And you just gave us a really good exercise on how to find your secret sauce. Now when it comes to a niche, you know, how did you fit? Like how did you figure out what that was? And for those who are wondering- a niche is kind of like your specialty, what you’re known for, finding that intersection of your skillsets.

Like have you seen that diagram of ‘what you’re good at’ ‘what people will pay you for’. Do you think that designers need a niche, at least in the beginning or all the time?

Can you be a generalist? Give me your thoughts because yeah, you were out in the trenches and you’re now working and you’re kind of seeing what’s out there.

EMILY: Yeah, that’s a really great question. To be honest, I didn’t have a niche. Like I had a niche in terms of what kind of values I wanted to align with.

I don’t know if anyone aspires to work at Amazon, but I wouldn’t want to work at Amazon. It just seems too corporate for me. And I feel like in my company, everything we do boils down to doing better for the world and practicing sustainability across different business practices.

So I just had a page in my portfolio, like my design values, like doing good for people. I know that’s a common buzzword. A lot of people say it but like actually living it out is a challenge. So, that was kind my starting point for my niche. And then I think, because a bootcamp experience and a real world job experience is so vastly different.

You start to recognize what you really don’t like doing or what you really enjoy doing. And I’m coming to this crossroads, where I think I really like UX research a lot. So I might even pivot into a role where the research is more prominent. But my approach in the beginning, because I just had no real world UX exposure at the time, I didn’t wanna pigeonhole myself. And so I targeted design roles where I got to do a little bit of everything and because I’ve had the chance to do that, I’m now able to say, okay, ‘I don’t really like doing overly complex interaction design. Like I just wanna focus on the strategy.’ I think it’s totally fine to not have a set plan of like, I wanna do this, this and this in the beginning.

You’re kinda like a sponge, you’re absorbing everything that there is to UX and then eventually you’ll hit a fork in the road and decide okay, I’m gonna go this way. I feel like that’s totally fine, but that’s just my experience.

SAMI: I think this is important for everybody to know is that everyone will have a unique journey and to take Emily’s advice with the idea that this is a journey that we can be inspired by, but we don’t have to go and like pick out our cute little glasses, get her cute hair, go learn ArcGIS. We don’t have to slavishly copy. We’re supposed to get some good inspiration and just to see somebody’s real life journey post CareerFoundry.

SAMI: One thing that you said in our conversation before was how you have developed skills, both the ones that you’ve had and the new ones that you, learned through CareerFoundry. Do you feel like as a designer that the bootcamp is kind of like just the first part of the journey?

You’re getting the first tool kit, but it’s kind of like you get babies first UX kit, and then you have to figure out what else to do, what else to add.

EMILY: Yeah. Another great question. I’ve actually gotten that same similar feedback from a previous mentor.

You’re learning all the different tools and it, yeah, like literally everyone said the same thing. Um, these are the tools that can help you prepare for whatever situation or problem or scenario that you approach in your work life. I know in CareerFoundry or other boot camps, it’s very step-by-step, you turn it in, you get it approved. Repeat.

And the real world. Not like that at all. It’s a little bit, jarring, just really seeing that difference where you’re not just gonna get an approval, you’re probably gonna go through at least five iterations for different reasons. And then a stakeholder, which this has happened to me, forgets their own feedback.

And then they’re like, wait, why did we do this? And I’m like, because you requested it, and then they’re like, oh, did I? So, um, it’s really not linear. Like how your schooling experiences are. You’re really getting those tools. But I will say that all those tools that I have in my belt are like, I know which one to whip out at any given time, but it’s not expected that you’re gonna have a project where you’re gonna start from scratch.

Just know it’s a tool set and you’ll know which scenarios to use, which tool. It’s great to work in a team where there’s other designers and you can kind of soundboard off each other too.

That’s another piece of advice I would give, like if you really want to learn, at a steady pace, I would recommend working in a company where there’s other designers around you, whereas at a startup, you will have a lot of ownership, but you’re kind of alone in it. So that’s another thing to consider during your job search as well.

SAMI: Oh, that’s a very good point. And that’s something that I would say you should consider in your branding because what a startup like sissy- Going to be somebody who’s like, “yeah. Like I eat challenge for breakfast with the side of orange juice. “ You know, you have to understand that. And I’ve also seen this when I’ve worked with more senior clients who are like the head of research and I’ve kind of picked their brains a little bit to know what they like in juniors and

‘in very traditional corporate institutions, they want a researcher who can get dense with it, but a startup will want a researcher who can make an infographic that the CEO can look at on his phone when he is in line at Starbucks.’

Where you want to land does affect your branding as much as the color scheme and effect in my opinion, more so sometimes.

So I think that’s a really good point, Emily. And thank you for bringing that up. Cuz I think sometimes students don’t realize that there’s differences and well, our best practices and the ideal, and then you go out in the world and you’re in the world and it’s a little bit different.

Q+A with Emily

What is the difference between a UXD and a UX architect?

My interpretation is that a UX architect is really familiar with the content itself and the information architecture, hence like the architect. You’re really planning out like where things are plotted within the overall experience, whereas a UX designer, you might be a little bit more, flexible in terms of other tasks, like user flows could be UX architect too, but they’re very similar.

I think UX designers are expected to be really proficient in wire framing and really putting out nice comprehensive wireframes. That’s something I should research myself. That’s just my own interpretation.

Someone is asking about how they would be the sole designer in the company. How about you give us a little bit of insight or what your thoughts are on being fresh out of the bootcamp and the only designer on the team.

I think if you are up for a challenge and you really will make use of the opportunity, it’s great. Just know that when I started my marketing internship, I was the only marketer in that company as well. So I can at least speak to that experience. It felt very lonely. I think half of the job is gonna be proving your worth to the company, which is very hard to do. You have to fight for design best practices. And sometimes if you’re the only designer with that one voice, it gets tiring to keep saying that message over and over again.

But if you have that opportunity own it, don’t expect your manager to manage you. I know that’s not a cool thing to say, but you have to manage yourself, like sit down and think about what do you want, what goals do you want to do and set out for the company? Keeping in mind the maturity of the company design philosophy (or lack thereof).

Cause you might have to make that mature on your own, right? That was

Give us a little idea of the benefits of working where there’s more designers.

We have about 15 designers now, and that’s just the UX team (not including UI).

We’re rapidly growing. We have weekly team meetings. You have people in the room that are listening to the kinds of work you’re doing. And then you also have resources and talented people that are there to help and support you. So if I feel stuck, I can reach out to a senior designer and be like, ‘can you help me real quick?’

Just having that base of people who are on your side is really comforting, which you automatically lose when you’re the only person representing design. I’m an introvert. So I tend to get stuck in my own head.

I really need other people to get my energy levels high and motivated. So, another thing is we have an established design system. So if you’re gonna work at a startup, you probably don’t have an established (or consistent) design system. That really does not make your work easy or convenient, but that’s not to say don’t do it. It’s just really thinking through the, the pros and cons. Working at a big company with a bigger team, it’s definitely been good for me to have that foundation of people who think similarly to you.

SAMI: Sometimes students are so concerned about getting a job. Any job, a jobby job. And you want to make sure that you are planted in the right soil so you can bloom. You know what I mean?

EMILY: I can share that desperation feeling.

I was applying for a job that no one has heard of. It was like this ramen app. And I was like, do I wanna work at a ramen app and be the only designer of this ramen group that I’ve never heard of? Really just cling onto those values that you have set for yourself and think of the long term.

Job hopping is exhausting. So yeah, just really think through what you want and you don’t even have to compare yourself to other people just, what do you want? For your own happiness.

Do you have any tips for preparing and successfully presenting your portfolio?

I would definitely practice. I say that because I don’t usually practice, but it’s really worthwhile to practice. A lot of people are interested in the process of why you made certain decisions.

I think coming from marketing, I feel like numbers are very valuable. So it’s not just about the polished pixel perfect design. It’s about ‘why did you decide to have this feature pin?’ Not this one. What is the behind the scenes work. And I feel like sometimes designers miss that whole chunk, which is like where all the gold and goodness is.

How do we spin ‘coming out of bootcamp’ and avoid being disingenuous?

Yeah. I went through the same struggle. It’s like, I don’t wanna lie, but at the same time, you’re not a fresh professional, you’re not a recent high school or college graduate, so you need to present yourself in that way. So whenever someone says, how many years of experience do you have?

Just be honest. Just say I have one year of UX experience. Some of these products or concepts never got pushed to production, but the work and process is there. That’s your work. I’ve heard from several UX leaders that even if it’s not launched that doesn’t discredit your work at all.

I would leave out certain key words rather than lying. It’s not lying. But also I’m in marketing, we’re known for hyping things up. I would also try to find as many opportunities whether that’s paid or not paid to do some kind of project with external people outside of CareerFoundry. That way you have some other experience to speak to.

I went to a Halloween party, met a founder there and got a UX contract role. Keep your mind very open to do anything really.

SAMI: I would also say that you should try not to use terms that dismiss yourself. Like I’m just a junior or ‘I don’t really have much experience’ where you are putting yourself down. That’s not gonna help you because one that’s gonna seem like you’re not very confident. And especially if you’re flying to startups or smaller design teams, they want everybody to feel like they can contribute.

So even if you think I’m just a waitress or I’m just an Uber driver, I knew I had a student who’s an Uber driver in San Francisco and he would give his resume every time he would pick people up at Google.

Thank you so much, Emily for being here and for sharing your wisdom, it was so great to have you at office hours.